


get off your knees and have a look (this is as good as it will get)

by procrastinatingbookworm



Series: Hello, I'm good for nothing - will you love me just the same? [5]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Chronic Pain, Injury Recovery, Kissing, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleepy Cuddles, Suicidal Thoughts, but heavy, short one today
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:14:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26936485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: Recovery is harder than it looks, and love is more work than they say.
Relationships: Quirrel & Tiso (Hollow Knight), Quirrel/Tiso (Hollow Knight)
Series: Hello, I'm good for nothing - will you love me just the same? [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957039
Comments: 14
Kudos: 90





	get off your knees and have a look (this is as good as it will get)

Quirrel is groggy when he wakes, more aware of Tiso’s shape in his arms than of his own body. He doesn’t open his eyes quite yet, unpicking sensations piece by piece.

Without his armor, bared down to just himself, Tiso is rather slight, his weight on Quirrel’s chest creating no particular pressure.

Tiso’s carapace is pitted in places and smooth in others; everywhere Quirrel’s fingers wander there’s a scar to find and trace and wonder about the story of. 

Tiso’s shell is cool to the touch, but there’s a faint heat at the joints; places for Quirrel to slot his fingers and warm them against the chill of Greenpath.

Tiso breathes how he speaks, nasally and rasping lightly. Tiso smells of haemo and SOUL and greenery and life.

Tiso shifts in Quirrel’s arms, making a soft, tired sound, and Quirrel opens his eyes.

The first thing he sees is Tiso—smiling brighter than the Old Light could even dream. 

“Hello,” Quirrel says, quietly, so as not to break the stillness settled over them.

“Hi, Q,” Tiso replies, still smiling.

They don’t speak much, after that. They’re tired and in pain, and it’s much less effort to kiss than to shape words.

They probably would have laid in the alcove all day, if it weren’t for the wall collapsing.

Quirrel flinches at the sound of crumbling stone, head turning so sharply that something in his neck crackles. Tiso makes a quiet noise, either of sympathy or laughter, but Quirrel doesn’t bother to ask.

There’s a hole in the back walk of their alcove. A crack, really.

“Did… did I do that?” Tiso says, in a voice of such puzzled bemusement that Quirrel has to kiss him before he can respond.

“I believe you did,” Quirrel chuckles, nudging Tiso out of the way so he can push at the crumbling rock. The crack widens under his fingers, stones falling loose just enough for Quirrel to peer through. “I’ve seen our friend break walls open with that nail of theirs, but only certain ones. Perhaps this one has the same structural weakness.”

“No wonder my hand hurts,” Tiso says, still in that vaguely dumbfounded voice. “Do you want your nail?”

“It won’t fit,” Quirrel says, and then “ow,” when rock crumbles from the wall and hits him in the knee.

“Back up,” Tiso says, not that it’s much of a choice, given that he immediately grabs Quirrel by the hood and hauls him out of the alcove. A determined set to his jaw, he picks up his shield, hefting it… and deflates.

Something vital—that Quirrel hadn’t even realized was missing until he saw it—goes out of him. The brief flare of confidence fades back into exhaustion.

Tiso hands the shield to Quirrel. “Try this. Throw it, or… just use it as a blunt instrument. Whatever’s easier.”

Quirrel takes the shield. There’s not really room to throw it, so he jams it into the crack in the wall, using it as a lever to pry the stones loose.

He needs to say something to Tiso. Something comforting, something reassuring, something to bring that light back into his eyes.

Stone crumbles—crumbles inward. There’s room back there, at least enough for the stone to fall. Perhaps there isn’t  _ much _ more to their alcove, but there is  _ something. _

“We could stay here,” Tiso says, very quietly. “Like the two you pulled out.”

Quirrel gives the shield another shove. More stones clatter. “It wouldn’t be quick. Or particularly graceful.”

“I just want to rest.”

Quirrel shuts his eyes. The cracked wall is fragile beneath his fingers, the moment between them even more so. “I know.”

“Then why don’t we?” Tiso asks, wrapping his arm around Quirrel from behind, settling his chin on his shoulder, face half-buried in Quirrel’s hood. “It would be easier.”

“It feels…” Quirrel starts, then trails off. He gives the shield another shove, without opening his eyes, and listens to the echo. “Now that we’ve taken a step in the other direction, it feels… recursive.”

Tiso holds him tighter. “Where are we going?”

Quirrel doesn’t have an answer.

“I’m tired,” Tiso says, like he’s confessing.

Quirrel’s chest aches. He reaches up with one hand, lacing his fingers with Tiso’s.

The wall gives way.

Quirrel falls forward, taking Tiso with him, and they crash into a pile of limbs and pained groans, in the entrance to a room much larger than their alcove. The ceiling rises so high above their heads that it disappears into shadow.

“Well,” Quirrel says, sitting up, and helping Tiso do the same. “We have this place to explore, before we rest.”

Tiso laughs, hollowly. “It appears we do.”


End file.
